Recorded in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall in February this year, Lang Lang’s performances of the Tchaikovsky and the Mendelssohn concertos bear out glowing reports of his youthful brilliance and sensitivity. He is helped by sympathetic accompaniment from this high-powered orchestra under a conductor who as a soloist has been a brilliant interpreter of such showpieces. On this showing Lang Lang is not a pianist intent on breaking speed records. Though, with breathtaking virtuosity, he is totally at ease in the bravura passages of the Tchaikovsky, his tempi tend to be broader than those of Ashkenazy and Argerich in their classic versions, recorded when they, too, were in their twenties.

The opening of the Tchaikovsky establishes this as a big-scale performance, strongly rhythmic and sharply accented, with high dynamic contrasts. That is partly due to the close balance; the opening takes one aback when the four horns in unison come over so powerfully. The downside is that the big melody on the first violins sounds surprisingly weak, hidden behind the pianist’s monumental chords; maybe the engineers should have helped here.

When the music relaxes into the second subject, Lang Lang shows his preference for broadening in lyrical passages and, next to Ashkenazy and Argerich, the result sounds a little self-conscious, though he is masterly in control of freely expressive rubato. You appreciate that again in the tempo he chooses for the Andantino semplice; it’s dangerously slow even if, aided by Barenboim, he is very persuasive. The central Prestissimo, taken very fast, sparkles brilliantly. Barenboim’s understanding of his soloist reflects his own experiences as a pianist, even to the extent of persuading the orchestra to phrase with rubato more usual with soloists. In the finale Barenboim may in part be responsible for encouraging his soloist to vary the tempo rather more than usual. What matters is the purposefulness and conviction of the playing, though I am not yet convinced that this is a reading that will stand the test of repetition as do the two long-established versions above.

Lang Lang learnt the Tchaikovsky concerto at nine, and played it in public, in Beijing with the China Youth Orchestra, just three years later. He was even younger when he tackled the Mendelssohn, a favourite of his, playing it first at only seven. Though the dynamics are less extreme than in the Tchaikovsky, the close balance of the piano again establishes this as a big-scale performance. In the slow movement he opts for a tempo markedly slower than Hough, who turns it more clearly into a ‘Song Without Words’; he is not quite so subtle in making the slow tempo seem fresh and spontaneous, as Perahia does, tending to remind one of the main melody’s closeness to a Victorian hymn. Even so, with such sparkling playing – Lang Lang erupting into a winningly joyful account of the finale – this makes a rare and attractive coupling for distinctive account of the Tchaikovsky.